This issue came out about Halloween time, but there is nothing to commemorate Halloween in the issue. The nearest to it is the mini-monster feature. However, the issue promises that the Guy Fawkes issue next week will be a sparkler, and in more ways than one – because that is when the Jinty classic, “Land of No Tears”, starts.

The story that gives way to “Land of No Tears” is “Cursed to be a Coward!”. The prophecy is fulfilled, but the twist is that it does not come true in the way Marnie expected – it had a completely different meaning altogether. And that is exactly how a prophecy is supposed to work. Once it is fulfilled, the crazed fortune-teller who had been trying to kill Marnie has one more desperate go at it – but there is something she apparently did not foresee, for all her powers to see in the future…

Alison Christie’s other story, “The Goose Girl”, is now on its penultimate episode. Glenda wants to go for an interview to get the career she wants. Unfortunately, her impossible mother messes everything up by sending her off to another interview because she is still pushing her into fashion design.

“Destiny Brown” also messes things up because she misinterpreted what her second sight was telling her – again. This time it screws up the chance that she and her father had of escaping the criminals who kidnapped them.

Fran and Co are off on a camping trip. But the outfits Fran picks show how ignorant she is about camping or country life, and it’s causing some embarrassment.

The mystery of the frightened girl deepens in “Stage Fright!” when Linda tries to reach out to her, but gets rebuffed. Linda turns to the mystery of the acting trophy instead and finds a clue there. And in “Guardian of White Horse Hill”, Janey’s emotional state gets so bad that her foster parents decide to send her back for expert help. Janey gets even worse when she overhears this; what will it drive her to do next week?

In the Gypsy Rose story, Tracy Gray discovers a window that can show her the past and the story of a stern father who is coming between his son and the girl he loves. But the story gets altered for the worse when a replacement pane from an evil house is fitted. Can the story be put right before the girl gets murdered?

Henrietta takes exception to Sue’s nail polish and her showing it off at school (um, isn’t nail polish banned in school?), and casts a spell in response. However, things rebound a bit on Henrietta when the spell has unexpected results that have her giving up in the end.

Rodrigo Rodríguez Comos (1935- ) is an artist with a distinctive style, quickly recognizable as a strong contributor to Jinty and to other British girls’ comics over many years. The Lambiek Comiclopedia has a detailed entry for him in English; likewise there is an entry on Spanish reference site Tebeosfera. He seems to have only started drawing for the non-Spanish market in the late 60s or early 70s, so his work for Jinty was probably quite early on in his career in British girls’ comics. This is in contrast to his slightly old-fashioned style, which I could happily have imagined to have been brought through from the days of comics such as Girl. I say this not to do him down: he is the artist on some key reader favourites. He lives in Spain and currently focuses on oil painting.

“The Haunting of Form 2B” is one of the stories in the launch issue in 1974, establishing Comos as one of the stable of Jinty artists thereafter. This ghost story set in a school has many classic elements: a mystery to be resolved, a school teacher with a difference, weird and scary goings-on, and danger to life and limb before all is cleared up. The fact that the main plot driver is ghostly rather than fantastical or science fictional lends it a less Jinty-like tone; but then Comos drew more ghostly or spooky stories than he did fantastical ones, in Jinty‘s pages at any rate. Having said that, the key story he will be particularly remembered for in this title is the classic SF story “The Robot Who Cried“.

As with many of the Spanish artists seen in Jinty and other comics of the time, Comos often signed his art, which helps to make attribution straightforward.

Following on from my earlierposts, more about what makes a story work. The discussion points in this post are more focused on the work of the artist, whereas the ones in the previous post were more around what the writer does.

Art quality. Is the art convincing and solid, with movement and vigour where required? Can the artist actually follow-through on technical requirements such as drawing ballet steps, gymnastics, and horses? Or is it inaccurate, stiff, or lifeless?

Of course this is primarily the artist’s responsibility, but there is some input from editorial departments. They may ensure, for instance, that art drawn by Spanish artists matches the British location that most stories are supposed to take place in by adding in pillar boxes and the like. Few artists in Jinty and other comics of this era are anything other than good to extremely good, so overall art quality is normally not a factor in the story not working. However, the artist may have specific gaps in what they can and can’t draw convincingly.

Stronger: There are so many strong artists that it is difficult to pick out one over the other except on the basis of personal preference. Mario Capaldi can draw faces, action sequences, and solidly convincing backgrounds, and is almost universally loved, but you could also say the same of my personal favourites Trini Tinturé, Phil Gascoine, and Phil Townsend. I think perhaps my favourite art on all the stories might however be Terry Aspin’s work on “Alice In A Strange Land”, in which he brings a strange jungle-wrapped lost city to life, alongside the British schoolgirls who have strayed into it.

Weaker: I find the Ken Houghton art on “Tansy of Jubilee Street” to be adequate but unexciting. It can be stiff at times when the artist has intended an action sequence, which is bad news. But even excellent artists can have off-days, too: Jim Baikie’s art is normally top-notch, but in parts of “Miss No-Name” some faces and sequences are very patchy, and possibly even filled-in by another hand. Finally, even if the artist is generally good, a specific failure to draw ballet well will condemn the story in the eyes of those who can spot that, as Mistyfan commented on a previous post.

Art style. The style of the artist needs to be matched to the story requirements. A light-hearted comedy story typically uses a more exaggerated style, and a sentimental or sad story might need something more restrained.

This might be an editorial decision in commissioning the right artist for the job, but it might also involve the artist deciding to use a variation on their usual style. Mario Capaldi and Jim Baikie are examples of artists who had humorous and serious styles that can be readily distinguished not because they look radically different but by the exaggeration of the character’s actions and expressions.

Stronger: This was generally a close match in any case. In other titles you could cite the use of John Armstrong to illustrate gymnastics in the Bella stories; in Jinty a close parallel would be the usage of Mario Capaldi for any sports story – for instance his superb depiction of the dramatic moments and of the swimming action in “Cursed To Be A Coward!“

Weaker: I think I would choose the selection of Trini Tinturé in “Prisoners of Paradise Island”. Trini is an excellent artist for showing scheming and plotting elegant ‘bad girls’ rather than hockey-playing schoolgirls. Similarly, José Casanovas in “The Darkening Journey” is always a slight mis-match for me as his animal characters are beautifully drawn but a tad too intrinsically cheeky-looking for such a sad and dramatic story. Finally, although I like Keith Robson’s art on “The Goose Girl” a lot, the Dutch publishers of Tina clearly felt that they wanted an art style that matched the continental expectations (such as a clear, clean line) as the same fundamental story was re-drawn in a Tina Topstrip.

Consistency of art. If the artist or the quality of the art changes visibly during the run of the storyline then this will be noticed by readers and is likely to have a negative impact on how well the story works overall.

If the artist is unwell or over-committed there might be a requirement for the editorial team to get another artist to fill in some or all of the remaining episodes of a story. Alternatively, another artist might perhaps collaborate to help finish the work in time (for instance by inking the original artist’s pencilled drawings). Presumably this might be an informal arrangement between artists if they were able to do this (for instance if they shared the same studio), but as there will have been people’s salaries at stake too I am assuming this was more likely to be an editorial decision to ensure that the story could be completed rather than abandoned.

Stronger: I am not aware of any examples where an inconsistency in the artwork actually benefitted the story (for instance if a mediocre artist was replaced by a better one). Even if the art changed for the better, the change itself would be jarring and intrusive. Ongoing humorous strips such as “The Jinx from St Jonah’s” did tend to have a few different artists working on it over the years and this was workable as there tended not to be a single story that would be badly affected by this change.

Weaker: This didn’t actually happen very often in Jinty‘s run. The obvious example is “Champion in Hiding” which started off with Mario Capaldi’s beautiful work and moved on to being drawn by Hugh Thornton-Jones, better known for his art on humour stories such as “Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag!”.

Character design. Making the characters in a story look and behave distinctively on the page is partly visual and partly about their dialogue and actions. Is the result a solid, convincing character or can you hardly tell them apart from other characters in girls’ comics? Worse, can you hardly even tell who’s who in the same story?

There is a lot of responsibility on the artist to bring a clear and distinctive visual identity to the character; at a minimum the inhabitants of the story should have different hairstyles, shapes, clothes that separate everyone out and make sure the reader is not confused. Ideally they should also have distinctive body shapes, body language and so forth too. The writer will have an impact too, in giving the protagonists an individual drive that will make them separate from others via distinctive dialogue and so forth.

Stronger: Jim Baikie was a very long-running Jinty artist, illustrating many continued stories and one-off Gypsy Roses. He certainly reused hairstyles (Fran of “Fran’ll Fix It!” shared a hairstyle with the protagonist of this Gypsy Rose story) but nevertheless each of his characters is visually distinctive in multiple ways – body shape, body language, freckles, and so on. No danger of mistaking his characters even when they do have some features in common.

Weaker: Comos’ schoolgirls across various stories illustrated by him have a bit too much similarity, I feel: I’d pick out the characters in “Destiny Brown” and the protagonists of “The Haunting of Form 2B” as being particularly visually similar.

Layout. There is a lot of thought that goes into getting an effective layout at the level of the individual panel and at the level of the whole page. Wally Wood’s 22 Panels That Always Work gives an idea of the sort of panel layouts that a US mainstream comics artist might use to vary the visual interest on a page; the conventions and standards for British weekly comics may differ a bit but will share a lot of requirements for varying the focus in each panel. Page layouts likewise can be pedestrian or innovative, with varying sizes of panel within and artwork that breaks out of the constraints of the panel border.

Again much of the responsibility of this lies with the artist, but the editorial team may also have input – for instance there may be a general instruction that pages should use a layout based on a nine-panel grid or on a six-panel grid to allow for larger panels. Pat Mills talks interestingly about working with the artist to create a dymanic page layout and strong panel layouts too. I don’t think that writers in this kind of comic usually would script down to this level (though in US mainstream comics they often will) but of course Pat was also an editor.

Stronger: There are a lot of really good and interesting layouts in Jinty, Misty, and Tammy, perhaps more so than in other titles from the time. “Concrete Surfer” has some very dynamic and interesting layouts depicting the protagonist’s skateboarding tricks; “Land of No Tears” is slightly more conventional but often breaks the borders or uses irregular panels for a dramatic effect.

Weaker: no immediate examples come to mind.

Incidentals. I am using this to refer to little background details in the artwork or the story.

This could be down to ideas from artist or from writer. Perhaps the artist will particularly need to fill the background somehow and may therefore put in extra detail either humorous or nostalgic.

Stronger: For instance Jim Baikie includes little jokes in the background of “Fran’ll Fix It”: they may be joky signs or funny things happening behind the protagonist’s back. There may also be little touches of colour that the writer may also include; I have always remembered a bit of dialogue in “Merry at Misery House” where Merry says she’s “not as green as [she’s] cabbage-looking!’ This is not in fact anything invented by writer Terry Magee but it’s a nice touch of appropriate vernacular and always lived on in my memory.

Weaker: It would be possible for the background detail to be over-egged and too intrusive. I can’t think of an immediate example that comes to mind however.

Design / font / lettering. The lettering of the dialogue in Jinty and similar comics are all typed in a standardised font, without any big distinction between strong emotion and ordinary ones (there can be a slightly bolder effect used but with the low print quality on newsprint this is not very easy to distinguish). However, the logo for the story title itself is more distinctively rendered to match the story it heads up. There are also lettering elements in the artwork that can be done well or less well – shop-fronts, newspapers within the story, and so on. Unlike in other comics genres, sound effects (another possible element to be done well or less well) are not greatly used.

I assume the story logo would have been done in-house editorially but this would need confirmation; I could also imagine it as supplied by the artist. The lettering would certainly be done by someone other than the artist as we can see by the consistency of the font used.

Stronger: A number of the story logos have a fairly simple design just using a natty font, so anything more than this can be quite striking. I like the design of the “Fran of the Floods” logo, with plain lettering but the addition of rain and a pool of water.

Weaker: Sometimes the logo font has no obvious sympathy with the title and just seems to have been chosen because it hadn’t been used particularly recently. “The Four-Footed Friends” is an example; nothing wrong with the story logo, but it doesn’t add anything extra.

Format / edition / pagination. The Jinty stories were only reprinted by British publishers in annuals rather than in albums collecting the whole story together, but of course translated editions did exist that brought the whole of a story under the same covers. This could potentially mean that a story either feels stronger in reading it as a cohesive whole, or perhaps that weaknesses of pacing are more clearly felt and so the whole story works less well when read as a single edition. Alternatively, a story may even be entirely too long for some formats. Finally, the format also includes the page size and other publishing decisions – how many pages will be in that week’s issue? Which pages will be printed on the double-page spread at the centre, or on the front or back where you can only see a single page at a time? These decisions are all very specific to the individual printing of a story and don’t necessarily impact how a story reads over its lifetime over more than one printing.

These format decisions are all editorial and would be unlikely to be down to anything decided by artist or writer (though a popular artist or writer could be ‘rewarded’ by being given a plum location in the weekly edition of a title, of course). I would assume that in these cases, the writer and artist will not typically have known in advance whether their story was to be printed on a double-page spread or on the right-hand page (meaning that the reader needed to turn over to reveal the next page) and would not have specifically tailored the story as a result. (In other kinds of comics publications this kind of fine-tuning is possible and even normal.)

Stronger/ weaker: I have not got good examples of stories that could make a stronger or weaker impact depending on the editorial choices of edition and pagination, but perhaps a reader of one of the translated albums may have views based on that experience.

Following up on the previous post on European Translations, Sleuth from Catawiki has kindly sent me a list she has prepared of Jinty stories which were translated into Dutch. (See also some comments from her in that post, about Dutch translations.) They were mostly published in the weekly comic Tina and/or in the reprint album format Tina Topstrip. The list below shows the original title, followed by the title in the Dutch translation, with a literal translation in [square brackets] where appropriate, and then the details of the publication that the translation appeared in. It is ordered by date of original publication.

Fran’ll Fix it! (1977; 1978-79): short story 3/4; Annabel versiert ‘t wel [Annabel will fix it]; episodes in Tina from 1983 till 1994; there were also “Dutch” episodes written by Bas van der Horst and drawn by Comos, and there is an episode in 1994 written by Ian Mennell and drawn by Comos.

Various of the stories translated in Tina were also reprinted in the Indonesian title Nina (of course Indonesia is a former Dutch colony, making for a clear link). These will be listed on a new reference page for Translations into Indonesian.

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This long list enables us to see how very popular some creators were – for instance, a large number of Jim Baikie and Phil Gascoine stories are included (though not all, by any means). Of course, these were also the most prolific of Jinty artists too.

Many stories were translated very shortly after initial publication, and then reprinted in album form some time later. There was also a ‘second round’ of translation work done after Jinty ceased publication, to go back and pick some of the earlier stories that had not been selected earlier. This was the case with “Always Together” and “The Kat and Mouse Game”, for instance.

Many but by no means all of the story titles were translated fairly literally or exactly, though the main character’s name was almost invariably exchanged for another one. Some titles ended up particularly poetical or neat in translation: “A Spell of Trouble” and “Holiday Hideaway” perhaps benefit most from their translated titles. Of course, there are also some losers: I think “The Human Zoo” and “The Girl Who Never Was” ended up with less resonant titles through the process.

A wide range of stories were translated: spooky stories, humour stories, science fiction, adventure, sports stories. There are some omissions that I’m surprised by, though of course the editors had to pick and choose from so much that was available. “Fran of the Floods” was probably too long (see Marc’s comment about the length of stories selected for translation). No Gypsy Rose stories were selected – maybe they didn’t want a storyteller, ‘grab-bag’ approach? I am however quite surprised at the omission of the excellent “Children of Edenford” (1979). Could it have been too subversive a story, with its underlying theme of adults undermining their position of trust by hypnotizing children in order to control their moral development? The similarly-themed “Prisoner of the Bell” was also not translated. Of course this is rather a guess! At the end of the day I’m sure there were just more stories to choose from than there were spaces for publication.

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For reference, I also include a complete list of stories published in the album format Tina Topstrip (71 albums in total). This gives us a view of how many of the reprinted stories deemed worthy of collection came from which original title. Note that some of the stories in this album format were themselves originally written in Dutch as they are credited to a Dutch writer. (NB I will add this to the new page created for Translations into Dutch)

Becky Never Saw The Ball

Twinkle, Twinkle, Daisy Star

Wee Sue

Het geheim van oom Robert (original story in Dutch)

Kimmy op de modetoer (original title unknown)

Marcella het circuskind (original title unknown)

Moses and Me

Peggy en Jeroen (Patty’s World story)

Anja – Dorp in gevaar (original title unknown)

Het lied van de rivier (Patty and the Big Silver Bull Band story, original in Dutch)

Sonja en de mysterieuze zwemcoach (I suspect this is a translation as no writer is given)

De man in het koetshuis (original story in Dutch)

Linda’s verdriet (original title unknown, from Tammy)

Het circus komt (original story in Dutch)

Wild Horse Summer

Noortje (original story in Dutch)

Ruzie om Jeroen (Patty’s World story)

Tricia’s Tragedy

Het lied van de angst (Patty and the Big Silver Bull Band story, original in Dutch)

A cover featuring two disturbing panels from the inside, and the colour combinations of red, black and burgundy make it even stronger.

“Battle of the Wills” reaches its penultimate episode and it contains one of the most ruthless acts ever seen in Jinty. Dr Morrison eliminates the cloned Kate in front of an audience of scientists with her reversal machine in order to prove her duplicating machine works. Everyone is horrified, but not the cold-blooded Dr Morrison, who only cares about proving her greatness.

It is also the penultimate episode of “Who’s That in My Mirror?”. The ghastly face of Magda’s own evil is getting worse and worse. Magda knows what must be done, but can’t do it, and traces of her old scheming ways still linger as well. So it is not surprising that in the final panel the evil face now threatens to do its worst.

“Destiny Brown” is in big trouble in school because she misconstrued her vision and plays truant. While doing so, she gets another vision of her runaway father. But a trip to Wales threatens her plans to search for him.

In “The Goose Girl”, Mum is getting really impossible with her bird-hating attitude and it is interfering with Brodie’s recovery. At the end of the episode, Mum goes too far – she locks Brodie in a shed and is going to arrange for the Colonel to dispose of him!

Linda reluctantly agrees to Lord Banbury’s condition to train as an actress under his wardship for the sake of her father. But the creepy old house she has to live in is really giving her “Stage Fright!”.

Marnie, the girl who is “Cursed to be a Coward!”, finds a swimming pool where she can train in without fear of the prophecy. And at the end of the episode she decides to tell her trainer, Miss Frame, why she has been so terrified of swimming lately. In the next episode we will see how much it helps.

Fran enlists the help of a bloodhound to find the missing school trophy, but he’s causing even more mayhem. It culminates when he has the headmistress standing on her desk in fright! The blurb for next week assures us that Fran will get herself out of this ‘fix’, so that’s a relief.

A cover featuring two of the supernatural- themed stories running in Jinty at the time, both with foreboding overtones. The panel featuring laughs with Alley Cat is quite a contrast.

In “Destiny Brown”, people are ostracising Destiny because her father has been connected to a robbery and bullies pick on her at school. But their bullying puts a girl’s life in danger – as Destiny foresaw with her second sight. In “Who’s That in My Mirror?”, Magda smashes the mirror in the hope this will free her from that ugly face that is a reflection of her own devil heart. But she is puzzled as to why the mirror is putting up no resistance to being smashed after resisting her attempts to get rid of it. Perhaps she should have taken the hint and put the rock down. But instead the drama of the story is going to accelerate towards its climax.

“The Goose Girl” learns why her mother hates birds. And now all readers must be more annoyed with the mother than ever. Hating all birds because her husband was shot while defending them from hunters? And now she’s helping those very same hunters who killed her husband? That woman really needs to get her head examined! Unfortunately that’s not going to happen, and her attitude is going to cause even more problems.

Marnie tries to get the curse lifted in “Cursed to be a Coward”. But instead she ends up with Madam Leo terrorising her over it and scaring the living daylights out of her just as she is about to do a high dive. Not a good combination, and this is just what that demented Madam Leo intends. Another Jinty character in serious need of a psychiatrist.

Fran the Fixer ropes some girls into shifting the grand piano for the Colonel. And she fixes a half holiday for the girls into the bargain!

It’s the last episode of “A Boy Like Bobby”. Next week Phil Townsend starts on his new Jinty story, “Stage Fright!”. Jinty is keeping her artists busy again.

“The Battle of the Wills” is put aside as the ballet Kate goes in search of the gymnast Kate, whom she thinks is in trouble. And she finds out how much Dr Morrison really cares about the cloned Kate; as far as the doctor is concerned, it’s “just an interesting experiment”. But little does ballet Kate know how much it is a foreshadowing of one of the most cold-blooded acts ever to be seen in girls’ comics.

A strong cover which makes effective use of purple, orange, red and green in both panels to announce the return of Gypsy Rose and the appearance of the 1978 Jinty annual.

The theme of foretelling and prophecy-making established on the cover runs through in several of the stories. “Destiny Brown” foretells a bank robbery – but does not foretell her father will be accused of complicity in it and is now wanted by the police! The “blue water” prophecy in “Cursed to be a Coward!” is making Marnie more and more terrified of water and everyone is getting fed up with her because they don’t understand her problem and she won’t explain. At the end of the episode, Marnie resolves to fight back at the curse of drowning apparently laid on her by the sinister fortune teller who could be the antithesis to Gypsy Rose. But how do you fight a curse? And in “Who’s That in My Mirror?”, Magda finally realises the evil face in her mirror is reflecting her scheming nature and resolves to change. But she gets a sneering warning from the face that it won’t be as easy as that, and this also proves prophetic.

Elsewhere, it’s part two of the “The Goose Girl”, and now we see why the story is called that when Glenda and her mother move to their new home. Glenda takes a stand against goose hunters (little realising how history is repeating itself there) and starts nursing a goose they wounded.

For “Fran’ll Fix It!”, Fran is presented with a really challenging fix – shifting a grand piano to the music shop in town for Colonel Wellington, a school governor. And she has to do it without a truck because of a strike. But it’s that or be punished for giving him cheek and then dropping a bell on his foot. Fran is known for dropping clangers with her fixing, but that’s ridiculous….

In “Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag!”, Sue and Henrietta also do some fixing – on a twister who sells phoney magic plant food. Henrietta fixes him in an unusual ‘punishment fitting the crime’ way – making him think his potion really does work magic on plants!

A friendly girl finally discovers that there are two Kates in “Battle of the Wills”. It’s still not clear which Kate is the original and which is the clone. But at least the feud between the two Kates is set aside when one Kate realises the other Kate is in trouble and decides to help.

It’s the penultimate episode of “A Boy Like Bobby”. Tommy runs away and Tessa and Bobby’s hunt for him results in him putting himself in terrible danger. How will this end the story next week?

The cover announces the start of one new story, “Destiny Brown”, but there is not even a mention of the other story starting, “The Goose Girl”. Presumably its space has been taken up by the competition being announced on the cover. Just answer two Muppet questions and you go into a draw to win a copy of the first Muppet album. But why is “Who’s That in My Mirror?” taking what could easily have been the space to announce the start of “The Goose Girl”?

“Destiny Brown” is the seventh child of a seventh child, so it’s no surprise that she suddenly develops psychic powers. And we have a new ‘parent problem’ story with “The Goose Girl”. Glenda Noble and her mother have been feuding over birds for years; Glenda loves them while her mother hates them. Moreover, she is the sort of mother who won’t let Glenda be herself and keeps pushing Glenda in the wrong direction. But Glenda is a rebel and constantly defies her mother, so she’s more ballsy than most regular heroines in that she can stick up for herself and even get her own way. But not enough to make her mother see reason.

Meanwhile, in “Battle of the Wills”, Kate Wills, who has been constantly rebelling against the grandmother who keeps forcing her into ballet, suddenly surprises herself by enjoying ballet for the first time when her new teacher arrives. If she is the original Kate, maybe she could stay that way forever. But is she? Dr Morrison says she is, while the other Kate, who has been told she is the clone, has gone into a state of shock and wandering in a daze. But Dr Morrison has been caught out in one lie already, so is her word to be trusted?

In “A Boy Like Bobby”, Tessa is defying her mother too in order to help the boys, and manages to fool her. But new problems are not far off, of course.

In “Cursed to be a Coward!”, Marnie’s hydrophobia is intensifying to ludicrous lengths. It is increasing her unpopularity at school, and she just won’t tell anyone what the problem is.

And as the cover states, the face of evil gets worse in “Who’s That in My Mirror?” as Magda’s scheming intensifies. In fact, in this episode she deliberately gives her own mother a dose of food poisoning!

This is the issue that starts “Jinty’s smash-hit story from 1977” (the blurb that came with its reprint in 1981) – “Land of No Tears”. Cassy Shaw trades on her bad leg to win sympathy, so is not keen on the operation to fix the problem. But then she finds herself in a future world where there is no sympathy for girls like her. In fact, there is no sympathy anywhere, because this is not only a world that demands perfection and treats less-than-perfect people as an inferior class, but also where the expression of emotion is outlawed, especially the shedding of tears.

It is also the Guy Fawkes issue, and Alley Cat and Sue’s Fantastic Fun-Bag celebrate with the fireworks stories. Henrietta re-enacts the Guy Fawkes story, but causes mayhem because she does not fully understand what it is about. However, it gets the pupils the afternoon off, and they’re not complaining about that, of course. Meanwhile, Spotty straps Alley Cat to one of his rockets for his fireworks display. But it backfires and Alley Cat gets the last laugh on Spotty.

In “Stage Fright”, Linda discovers the history of the mystery girl, and she discovers something else as well – Lady Alice has been poisoning the girl against her!

“Destiny Brown” has been tied up and gagged and left to die in a building scheduled for demolition. It’s also the penultimate episode, and we are promised news of three new stories in the next Jinty. One of them will replace “The Goose Girl”, which concludes in this issue. Glenda has missed her interview because of Mum, but gets something even better – it turns out that the interviewer is the one person who can get through to Mum and ensure the happy ending.

Janey’s guardians think she needs expert help and send her away for it – but we know the “Guardian of White Horse Hill” is going to step in. In fact, he helps Janey escape by encouraging her to jump off the train in pouring rain and onto his back!

In “Fran’ll Fix It!”, the girls are fed up with camping and want to go back to school. And after being lumbered with spud-bashing, Fran is only too happy to fix it for them. The trouble is, her fixing is meeting its match in their potty headmistress. Something needs to happen fast or Fran will be thrown in the duck pond!

Gypsy Rose‘s tale, “The Thirteenth Hour” concerns a Queen Anne clock that strikes thirteen. Why did it strike thirteen, and does it have any connection with Sharon Bayne giving her brother a hard time for breaking her alarm clock and vowing never to forgive him?

We have just received word that Alison Christie (now Fitt) wrote “The Eternal Flame”, the Gypsy Rose tale in this issue. So I thought it was appropriate to put up the cover, and I had the issue out anyway. It is a beautiful cover that makes effective use of the complementary effects of blue and pink. The yellows, greens and oranges set it even off even more. And we see the colour combinations in both panels that are being used on the cover, rather the colours used in one being a contrast to the colours used in the other.

“The Eternal Flame” is a candle that will not burn down until the man it is being lit for returns from sea. But how can he when his boat went down years ago? Or is it more than just the candle that is supernatural in this story?

Two other known Christie stories are also running in this issue: “Cursed to be a Coward!” and “The Goose Girl”. In the former, the bullying continues for Marnie at school because of her hydrophobia and even the presence of her mother does not make the bullies back off. Nor does Madame Leo, whose harassment of Marnie wrecks her birthday. And now her dear friend, Mr Rennie, has collapsed. But we are told that next week is the final episode, so maybe it’s what they say about it getting worse before it gets better. In the latter, Mum’s hatred of birds now causes Glenda to run away with her beloved goose, but they get caught in a snow storm. However, we are promised that next week something good will happen to Glenda for a change.

Meanwhile, in “Stage Fright”, Linda Roberts pretends to sleepwalk to find out who is harassing her. Her ruse seems to have fooled everyone, but will it draw her enemy out and enable her to find out who is living in the mystery wing?

In “Fran’ll Fix It”, Fran’s two ghastly aunts, whom her father threatens her with if she gets expelled again, now appear in her story for real. Yikes! They’re even more fearsome in person than in the film Fran’s father showed her of them. Yet they have their wacky side too and can cause as much mayhem as Fran, so it must run in the family. Anyway, Fran soon learns that she doesn’t even need to be expelled to be sent to them – if they don’t like the school, she ends up at their place anyway! Can Fran fix it so they will walk away impressed with the school and let her stay?

“Destiny Brown” finds her father is not an accomplice for some robbers – he is their prisoner! They are holding him hostage to force her to use her clairvoyance to work for them. And in “Guardian of White Horse Hill”, girls at the stables tease Janey over her teddy bear, but then weird things start happening. The horses are acting like they’re spooked and then Janey finds nobody can see or hear her. Has she become invisible or something?